Kathryn Lyons is woken out of sleep in the early morning by someone knocking at her door. Mattie, her daughter, is in bed, and her husband, an airline pilot, is not due back until that afternoon. The man at the door tells her that Jack, her husband, is dead. Kathryn nearly faints, and the man helps her inside, telling her that he, Robert Hart, is from the pilot’s union. The plane that Jack was flying exploded off the coast of Ireland, killing everyone on board. Her phone rings immediately, and Robert answers it. He says “no comment” and hangs up. The phone immediately rings again, and he takes charge of answering. He and Kathryn turn the television on to watch the news, but Kathryn is preoccupied with her need to tell her daughter, Mattie, about Jack’s death. After imagining the scene, she puts it off, choosing instead to watch the media coverage of the tragedy.

They watch an interview with a witness of the plane’s explosion, and Kathryn questions Robert about his job. She realizes that he had gotten to her house in under an hour from the time of the explosion.